Tuesday, September 18, 2012Obama talks taxes in ColumbusSays he would raise taxes on the wealthyby WKSU's STATEHOUSE CORRESPONDENT JO INGLESThis story is part of a special series.

ReporterJo Ingles

President Obama made two stops in Ohio yesterday….one in Cincinnati….the other in Columbus. Ohio Public Radio’s Jo Ingles reports the President laid out his plan for reducing debt and getting Americans back to work in his Columbus visit.

In his 12th trip to the Buckeye State this year, President Obama told about 45 hundred people at a Columbus park that he’d raise taxes on upper income Americans and would use money saved from fighting wars to reduce the national debt. He said Republicans want to go back to the same economic plan that he said plunged the nation into a recession.

“They were happy to talk about all of the things that are wrong with America but they don’t want to talk about how they’d make it right. They want your vote but they don’t want you to know their plan.”

Obama said he’s already cut taxes, saving the average American family about three thousand six hundred dollars a year. And he said it’s time that some Americans pay a little more right now.

“I want to make sure we are asking the wealthiest households to pay slightly higher tax on incomes over 250,000 dollars, the same rate that we had when Bill Clinton was President, when our economy was creating 23 million new jobs, when we had the biggest surplus in history and we had a bunch of millionaires to boot.”

Obama said the Republican plan promises lower taxes, increased defense spending, and deficit reduction….but he said it doesn’t add up.

“I’m telling you, you cannot make it work. You cannot cross the ‘t’s’ and dot the ‘I’s’ on this plan. And Columbus is a town where you’ve got to dot the ‘I’

Obama said he is fired up and ready to go. He asked his supporters to register to vote and cast their ballots early so they can spend their time working to get others to vote.